Saturday, April 12, 2014

Worcester's Outcat

By Chet Williamson

In his
long and storied professional career, drummer Paul Murphy has
performed and recorded with many of the most famous free-jazz musicians in
world.

A
smattering of those in the extensive roster includes such notable outcats as Hamiet
Bluiett, Kidd Jordan, Karen Borca, Raphe Malik, William
Parker, Ran Blake, Joel Futterman, Larry Willis and Jimmy Lyons, with whom
he played as
a member of his many ensembles from 1974 to 1986.

Born in Worcester on January
25, 1949, Murphy has
also studied drums and timpani with some of the greatest percussionists of the
20th century, including receiving direction from Gene Krupa, Louie Bellson, Buddy Rich, and Joseph
Leavitt at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.

Gene Krupa

Leavitt
was the principal percussionist with the National Symphony Orchestra. Murphy
has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and has conducted clinics
at Berklee College of Music.

Murphy
spent his formative years in town, but grew up in Washington, DC, where at the age of 16, played
bebop in a group with Ellington bassist Billy Taylor. He also played in jump blues, R&B and rock ‘n’ roll bands in the DC area
before heading West to California, where he made connections in the
so-called avant-garde scenes in both L.A. and San Francisco, performing with Mary Anne Driscolland
saxophonist Arthur Baron. Murphy has also lived in Hartford and New York City.

Driscoll

As a
bandleader, Murphy has led ensembles that include such highly regarded players
as Dewey Johnson, Jay
Oliver, Glen Spearman, Kash Killon and India Cooke, among
others. He has also worked with a wide variety of musicians ranging from Gary
“U.S.” Bonds and John Lee
Hooker to Jaki Byard and Sun Ra.

Byard

Murphy
has recorded a collection of albums as as a leader. A partial list includes
Paul Murphy and Mary Anne Inside Out, The Paul
Murphy Trio, Red Snapper, Cloud Burst, Shadows-Intersections-West, Trio Hurricane: Suite of Winds, Paul Murphy & Larry Willis: The Powers of Two Volume I and II and Excursion.

Jimmy Lyons

As a
sideman Murphy's name appears on a handful of Jimmy Lyons' discs including We
Sneez-A-Wee, Give It Up, Live at Moer’s Festival and Live
in Paris. He has also been in sessions with Eddie Gale, Clifford Jordan, Kiani Zwadi, Frank Kimbrough, Ben Allison and more.

Kidd Jordan

In addition
to his musical gigs, Murphy spent a stint as the manager of Ali's Alley, the legendary club once owned by Rashied Ali.Although his resume is deep, varied and prestigious, Murphy has flown somewhat beneath the
radar over the years. Now living back in the Washington, DC-area, Murphy is
still very much active and now with a series of audio and video clips
surfacing on the Internet, Murphy is recently
going through a kind of resurgence.

He spent
his early days at 56 Orange Street in Worcester in a house that was later torn
down to make way for the expressway.

“It was a
three-story railroad flat,” he says. “That’s what my grandmother used to call
it. The back of the building was about 150 feet to the railroad tracks. So when
you went out on to our back porch and down there was some asphalt and then
dirt, but covered in coal dust from the steam-driven locomotives. That’s where
all the kids played. I had a good time. It was a three-decker, but not one of
those wooden three-deckers. I have a photo of myself outside with a bass drum.
Looking at the photo, it looks brick.”

Murphy
went to Lamartine school down in the GreenIsland section of the city. While still
in grade school, the family moved to 14 Lewis Street, and then to East Avenue in Shrewsbury, where Paul was enrolled in the PattonSchool.

As a
child, he was surrounded by music. “My mom played violin,” he says. “She had
lessons. She was taught classical violin but she was not a classical violinist.
My grandmother played piano and sang. My uncle John played piano and guitar and
sang as well. He did quite a few gigs around town as a singer,” Murphy says.

Murphy practicing

Sitting
at the piano are some of his earliest memories. As soon as he could be held, he
recalls the family put baby Paul at the keyboard. “I loved to play on it. Once
they tried to teach me how to play, I wasn’t really interested in the piano,
other than banging on it and looking at the hammers and how they strike the
string. I remember all of that vividly.”

The banging
naturally led to drums. “One Christmas my father bought me a toy set, from then
on I just started playing along everyday with my grandmother or my uncle. They
were both in the house and they played a lot. I believe I was three. In the
picture it looks like I was about three.

“My uncle
John also tried to teach me the guitar. I liked the guitar. It liked how it
looked and sounded, but I just never would put in the time to learn it. I
remember ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ I learned that song and tried to learn another,
put that down and went right back to the drums.”

Murphy in the studio

Sometime
around the age of five or six, Murphy was taken downtown to study with a drum
teacher. He says, “I forget the gentleman’s name, but he said he didn’t teach
anybody that was younger than eight-years old. That was it as far as a
professional teacher. Then it was just back to the drawing board. My uncle John
and my grandmother were trying to show me how to play a ride beat on the
cymbals.”

When
asked about his first drum set, Murphy says, “It wasn’t a real kit. It was a
snare that had two heads that attached to the snare. So you have the feel of
two tom toms. It had a cymbal and woodblock attached to the snare drum. It didn’t
have a high-hat. The other foot was just on the floor. At least it was real. It
had calf skin heads and all of that.

“For
whatever reason, I started playing with the traditional jazz grip. My uncle
John and my grandmother they knew a lot of people and musicians. Worcester wasn’t that big.”

Gene Krupa

Murphy
says even from the beginning he was aware of the importance of tuning his
drums. “It was a big factor, because I always loved how Gene Krupa’s snare drum
sounded -- even on the records. I would try to make it as best as I could. I
don’t like a muffled sound. I don’t have any dampers on any of my drums. I tune
them wide open.”

When the
family moved to Lewis Street, Murphy had the good fortune to
move into a building where another young drummer resided.

“His name
was Bill Hickman,” Murphy says. “His mom and dad owned 14 Lewis Street and they were on the first floor.
That was a three-decker. We were on the top. Bill was playing drums already and
playing in high school dances. He had practice pads and a full drum set. I used
to see him everyday and he just started formally teaching me about reading
music. He let me play any day I saw him and I would make my way there to make
sure I saw him everyday.”

While
still to young to perform, Murphy recalls attending functions and shows at the
Worcester Auditorium, Loew’s Palace Theater (Now called Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts), and Mechanics Hall.

“My dad
started taking me to a lot of different things — at people’s weddings I’d
always get to sit-in on drums. My dad was a really big jazz fan. He collected
78s. He gave me one of those turntables that you crank. It didn’t have
electricity. I was made aware of Gene Krupa and people like that at about age
five. My father was a really avid jazz fan and for whatever reason, it didn’t
matter where we were, whatever jazz club or whatever was happening
musically, my dad seemed to be able to have me meet the musicians. He just knew
these people. He introduced me to Gene Krupa, Cozy Cole, Louie Bellson -- he
went out of his way to more than introduce me to them.”

As a
youngster, Paul got to play for Krupa. “This happened in a club. It was boom,
bang. Gene said, ‘So you play drums?’ I said, ‘Yes sir.’ He said, ‘Show me what
you play.’ He just spun this chair around and handed me a pair of sticks. I
just sort of froze and then started beating away at 'Sing Sing Sing.' He just
started talking to me and showed me some things with the sticks. From there
anytime Gene was anywhere, I was there. My dad also took me to New York. He had a school that he and Cozy
Cole were both teaching and running.”

After
leaving the military, Murphy’s dad attended ClarkUniversity and after graduation started
working for the post office in the FederalBuilding on the corner of Main and Southbridge Streets.

“He was
the Assistant Post Master,” Paul says. “We used to go downtown quite often.
What I really remember about downtown was Jimmy Cosenza’s barbershop. I always
had to go in and see him. I remember the big Planter’s Peanut that used to tap
on the glass. They had a quarter taped to the glass and he would tap on it. I
remember the Commons area. I remember the listening booths in a record store. I
remember the El Morocco.

“My
grandmother owned a place called the Palace Lunch, which sat right next to
the Palace Theater. It was a diner. My family knew a lot of people in Worcester. My uncle John played piano and
sang. Between my grandmother and uncle, they knew all the players of the day.
The relationships that my family had with all of these people were more like
extended family. Later on in my life I was back in Worcester. I have a lot of family still
there. I cruised up and down Highland Street. I had a great time living in Worcester and when I came back.”

Murphy
says he recalls the names of local performers such as Dol Brissette, Bob
Pooley, and Pete Clemente. “The real name that struck me was Emil Haddad," he says. In ’76, when I was playing with Jimmy Lyons, we were doing a gig in Boston and I think I was doing a clinic
at Berklee and there was a wedding. We went to the wedding and my dad
introduced me to [Emil] and said, ‘Hey Paul, why don’t you sit-in with the
band?’ They were playing standards. It was cool.”

This piece was first published in February of 2008. Murphy is still active and very much an outcat.

Note: This is a work in
progress. Comments, corrections, and suggestions are always welcome at:
chromatic@charter.net. Also see: www.worcestersongs.blogspot.com Thank you.

This is a work in progress. Send all comments, suggestions and corrections to: walnutharmonicas@gmail.com. Resources